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These days, more homeowners (and renters) are interested in making green home improvements, and they’re particularly interested in knowing which improvements have a low cost and a high (or fast) payback—i.e., a good Return on Investment, or ROI. A few of the most common suggestions for easy, low-cost projects that reap significant savings (in energy, water, and dollars) are:

• Switch to LED and/or compact fluorescent (CFL) light bulbs. (Note: When buying CFLs, choose low-mercury products. And CFLs cannot be thrown in the trash; because they contain mercury, they must be recycled by a hazardous waste facility. Some stores, such as Home Depot, collect used CFLs.)
• Switch to Energy Star appliances and electronic equipment when it’s time to replace old units.
• Install Energy Star ceiling fans, to reduce or eliminate the need for air conditioning.
• Switch to WaterSense plumbing fixtures (e.g., dual-flush or other high-efficiency toilets, and ultra-low-flow faucets and showerheads).
• Insulate your hot water pipes; and add insulation to your attic (and/or walls and basement).
• Have a home energy audit done to check for air leaks and identify other inefficiencies or areas that need improvement; a home performance contractor should then make the needed improvements. More and more companies are springing up to offer these services. (One of the first companies on the scene was Recurve, formerly called Sustainable Spaces.) You can search here for a contractor near you who has been accredited by the Building Performance Institute.

For other ideas and helpful cost/benefit assessments, check out this new book: Green Sense for the Home: Rating the Real Payoff from 50 Green Home Projects, by Eric Corey Freed and Kevin Daum (Taunton Press, April 2010). Here’s the publisher’s description of the book: “When does a green home project make financial sense? The authors of this book provide the answer to this and other questions relating to the cost (and relative value) of environmentally friendly home improvements. They walk readers through 50 green home projects and break them down according to the positive impact they have on the environment, as well as the impact they may have (both positive and negative) on the reader’s wallet. They evaluate a wide array of projects, including insulating pipes, weatherizing doors and windows, composting and recycling trash, installing a solar hot water heater, installing green countertops, upgrading appliances, building with reclaimed materials, and installing radiant heat.”

Other recent books include Green Home Improvement: 65 Projects That Will Cut Utility Bills, Protect Your Health & Help the Environment by Daniel Chiras, PhD (RS Means) and This Green House: Home Improvements for the Eco-Smart, the Thrifty, and the Do-It-Yourselfer by Joshua Piven (Abrams).

For additional information and tips, these are some online articles and websites with lists of green improvements that are good investments:

• 15 Green Projects for Under $500 (GreenHomeGuide.com / This Old House)
• The Energy Efficiency Pyramid: A guide for energy retrofit work (GreenBuildingAdvisor.com)
• 10 Tips for Energy Savings and Healthy Living [PDF]  (Global Green USA)
• 16 Ways to Green Your Home [PDF]  (U.S. Green Building Council)
• 10 Ways to Beat the Heat (GreenHomeGuide.com)
• EnergySavers.gov (Department of Energy)
• Energy Star: Home Improvement information

If you’d like assistance with choosing and implementing green home improvements or remodeling strategies, I am a green advisor who can provide this type of assistance through email consultations (or phone or in-person consultations). Click here for more info.

The good folks at BuildingGreen recently announced their eighth annual Top Ten Green Products. Of the ten they selected, three of my favorites are: Baltix office furniture; Mobile solar power generators; and Pentadyne flywheel energy storage for uninterrupted power supply systems (the flywheel essentially uses magnets and physics, as an alternative to using batteries).

The following are key online resources for information on federal, state, and local environmental tax credits, rebates, and other financial incentives. Most of the incentives that are available are for installing energy-efficient equipment or renewable energy (e.g., solar) technologies.

FEDERAL

These are good directories of federal income tax credits, grants, other incentives for energy-efficient products—for consumers, as well as businesses, builders, and manufacturers:

• Energy Tax Incentives Assistance Project
• Database of Incentives for Renewable Energy: Federal

Click here for a clear summary of the main tax credits currently available: essentially 30% of various energy-efficiency improvements (up to $1,500) and 30% of the cost of solar energy installations. For info on federal grants (to organizations and agencies), go to Grants.gov.

STATE AND LOCAL

Check out the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency for a compendium of options, organized by state. Also check with your municipality (city and county governments) and local utility companies. Many offer their own green rebates and incentives. And this is a great summary of energy-efficiency grants and funds provided to state and local agencies by the 2009 economic stimulus/recovery bill (ARRA).

CALIFORNIA

For those of you who are in California, there are numerous entities offering green rebates and other incentives. Take a look at these resources:

• California listing from the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency
• Flex Your Power’s listing of energy-efficiency rebates and incentives (including incentives for energy-efficiency HVAC equipment, appliances, lighting, roofs, water saving products, etc.)
• California Solar Center’s listing of solar incentives
• California Solar Initiative’s solar rebate application
• CEC Emerging Renewables Program rebates for wind or fuel cell installations
• PG&E’s rebates for efficient equipment and appliances
• Consumer loans for solar panel installations (Solar Home Equity Loan), from New Resource Bank
• California Economic Recovery, Energy-Related Programs

If you know of other useful directories or resources related to green financial incentives, or if you have made use of energy tax credits or other green incentives, please share your experiences or suggestions by leaving a comment below.

NEW (added 1/19/10): Also check out the directory of energy rebates and tax credits at EnergySavvy.com. Enter your zip code and the site will give you a list of applicable state, local, and federal incentives.

I recently added the latest set of Platinum rated projects to my listing of LEED Platinum certified building projects worldwide. The listing is organized by countries and states, and some of the projects are linked to in-depth case studies. As of this month (October 2009), I know of LEED Platinum certified projects in 44 U.S. states plus Puerto Rico, as well as projects in 9 other countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sri Lanka, and the United Arab Emirates. There are all types of Platinum projects: commercial, residential, institutional…new construction as well as renovation.

Platinum is the highest rating in the LEED green building rating systems. Building projects that have attained this rigorous level of certification are among the greenest in the world.

I update the listing every month or two. If you know of a project that has officially achieved LEED Platinum certification but is not yet included in the listing, please let me know.

The following websites have some of the most well-presented and up-to-date, free online collections of case studies (or profile articles with in-depth project information) on green homes and green buildings around the country. They feature new construction as well as renovation projects.

These three sources provide case studies and information on residential projects only (primarily single-family homes):

• GreenBuildingAdvisor.com: Green Homes case studies, which include data on energy use/savings, cross-section drawings for builders and designers, multiple photographs of each home’s features, and in-depth project descriptions. Among their case studies are two that I wrote: one about Ann Edminster’s green addition and renovation in Pacifica, CA, and another about a beautiful solar home on the Oregon coast.

• USGBC.org:: Profiles of LEED for Homes certified projects

• Natural Home magazine: Articles on green home projects

These sites primarily feature commercial and institutional buildings, though they also include some case studies of residential projects:

• High Performance Buildings Database provided by the U.S. Department of Energy and BuildingGreen. The case studies in this database are very comprehensive; they include information on costs, the team process, and lessons learned, as well as details on the projects’ green strategies and materials. Currently, the database contains case studies on more than 275 buildings, including more than 130 LEED certified projects. Note: In order to get full access to the case studies through the BuildingGreen site, you have to be a member/subscriber (which I believe is well worth the price if you’re actively involved or have a strong interest in green building). If you’re not a subscriber, you can get free access to complete versions of a subset of those case studies (112 of the 275) via the Department of Energy’s database (unfortunately, this site hasn’t been updated for a few years, so it doesn’t include the most recent projects that are posted on BuildingGreen). In addition, you can see complete versions of some of the LEED case studies via the U.S. Green Building Council’s site (select “Projects with Case Studies” on the search form), and case studies on the annual award winners of the AIA COTE (American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment) Top Ten Green Projects via the AIA’s website.

• GreenSource magazine: Case study articles on green buildings

• USGBC.org: Profiles of LEED certified buildings, offices, neighborhoods, etc.

I have written many case studies on green building projects over the years. In addition to the two recent Green Building Advisor case studies mentioned above, I’ve prepared in-depth case studies on the David Brower Center, Berkeley; Alder Creek Middle School, Truckee; Colorado Court affordable housing, Santa Monica; the Linden Street Apartments, Somerville, MA, and other projects. Links to some of my published case studies are posted on MLandman.com.

I’m not someone who delights in killing pests, and I don’t often advocate for their demise. In fact, I usually do my best to avoid killing them (e.g., if an indoor spider gets too close for comfort, I usually capture it in a jar and release it outside). However, I recently had to make an exception to my pacifist policy, when I noticed that yellow jackets had built a nest right next to the front door of our house. It was an underground nest in a flower bed. There were so many yellow jackets coming and going from the nest throughout the day that we were scared to keep our front door open for very long, and I worried that our dog would inadvertently step on the entry to the nest and get swarmed and attacked. Furthermore, I learned that yellow jackets sometimes raid honeybee hives to steal their honey, and they kill honeybees in the process. This is a sufficiently good reason to get rid of the jackets, in my opinion. One of our neighbors has a honeybee hive, so it felt like killing these yellow jackets was a just and neighborly thing to do.

(Honeybees are suffering from a Colony Collapse Disorder. For info about it, click here. Note: If you have a problem with a swarm, nest, or hive, check out online photos of bees, yellow jackets, hornets, etc. to make sure you know which of these you’re dealing with. Honeybees and other pollinators are extremely important, and they almost never sting; please don’t kill them.)

I didn’t want to use toxic insecticides, which could kill the flowers in our garden and poison our dog and the honeybees, along with the soil and groundwater around our house. So, thinking we were being clever, my husband and I tried putting the garden hose down the nest entry hole and flushing out the nest with water. This scheme did not work. We tried it a few evenings in a row, and the tenacious buggers would shoot out of the nest alive (seemingly unfazed by the water) and quickly rebuild a new entry hole. One evening, they went into attack mode and my husband got stung. They won these battles, but we were determined to outsmart them and win the war — without resorting to the use of Raid, professional chemical insecticides, gasoline, or any of the other toxic and hazardous substances that are commonly suggested.

So I started researching other non-insecticide solutions. Through my reading, I learned that mint oil can kill almost any insect, and that yellow jackets also don’t like soapy or boiling water… We happened to have a quart-size container of Dr. Bronner’s “magic” organic peppermint castile liquid soap in the house. The bottle was only half full, so we filled the rest of it up with water to make it a 50% diluted quart. Then we waited ‘til it was almost dark outside (this is the only time you should ever deal with yellow jackets, as they’re all inside the nest and inactive at night). We poured the quart down the nest’s entry hole (it’s best to do this with an extension device, like a hose or a gas can or watering can, to keep your body further from the nest opening — and you should also wear protective clothing). We immediately followed that up by pouring in a kettle full of boiling hot water, which washed the mint oil further down into the nest. We didn’t see a single yellow jacket emerge from the nest that night, and we haven’t seen any around here since. It worked!

RECIPE
1/2 quart (2 cups) Dr. Bronner’s organic peppermint castile soap, diluted/mixed with
1/2 quart (2 cups) water [poured into the nest via a hose or watering can with a long nozzle]
Followed by 1 tea-kettle full (approx. 1 quart or 4 cups) of boiling water

[Note: While this solution worked for this ground nest, it might not be appropriate for other scenarios, e.g., nests in the walls of your house, where you cannot find the exact entry spot. For those types of situations, try using Rescue traps instead.]

Dr. Bronner’s entertaining, pontificating text-filled label (I recommend reading all of the fine print if you haven’t before) states that the soap is good for 18 different uses: from washing pets and babies to washing dentures and cars. Yellow jacket / insect eradication isn’t one of the listed uses, but it seems that it should be. Soon I’m going to experiment with using the stuff to repel mosquitos, get rid of ants, and keep fleas and other bugs off of the dog. I’ll update this blog post to report on the results…

Check out the Dr. Bronner company’s good work on social and environmental issues (e.g., fair trade, truly organic ingredients, employee salaries and benefits, charitable donations, etc.). And if you’re curious about the eccentric Dr. Bronner’s life, rent the fascinating documentary Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox.

ENERGY STAR is an energy efficiency rating program developed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Most people are familiar with ENERGY STAR labeled home appliances and light bulbs, but many people may not be aware that the label is applied to more than 60 different types of products (for residential use as well as commercial building use), including heating and cooling equipment, roofs, and many types of electronics. (Note: Heating and cooling are the largest sources of energy consumption in homes; they account for almost half of a typical home’s energy consumption and energy costs.)

Specific examples of products for which you can find ENERGY STAR qualified models include: air conditioners (central or room), ceiling fans, exhaust/ventilation fans, furnaces, boilers, thermostats, water heaters, refrigerators and freezers, dishwashers, clothes washers, insulation, windows, skylights, roofs, doors, light fixtures and bulbs, as well as TVs, DVD players, phones, computers, monitors, printers, copiers, etc.

To find out which brands and models of a particular product have earned the ENERGY STAR label, or to compare the levels of efficiency among different models, go to the ENERGY STAR Qualified Products website. Also, check with your utility company to see if they offer rebates for purchasing energy efficient equipment or appliances; many utilities do.

Efficient Refrigerators

Among household appliances, the refrigerator tends to be not only the biggest appliance, but also the biggest energy hog. “ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerators require about half as much energy as models manufactured before 1993. … ENERGY STAR qualified refrigerator models use at least 20% less energy than required by current federal standards.” To find out how much energy and money you could save by replacing your refrigerator, check out this online calculator. And if you decide to upgrade to a more energy-efficient refrigerator, here’s info on how to recycle your old fridge and make sure the Freon is recycled/disposed of properly (Freon is a hazardous substance and it should not be dumped in a landfill).

To learn about other ways to save energy, peruse the helpful resources on these sites:
California’s Flex Your Power program
U.S. Department Energy’s Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy (EERE) program: Consumer’s Guide

P.S. The U.S. EPA has also developed a WaterSense label for water-efficient plumbing fixtures and other water-saving products.

The Green Spotlight (TGS) presents concise information and useful links related to green living, green building and design, and green business. Its brief blurbs highlight noteworthy ideas, products, services, events, websites, publications, organizations, and other resources that support the transition to an environmentally sustainable lifestyle, economy, and society.

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TGS is published by Miriam Landman of M. Landman Communications & Consulting. Miriam is an experienced eco-advisor, writer, and editor. She provides practical guidance on green building and overall sustainability.

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